Climate change is this century’s biggest threat to human health according to a major report by an interdisciplinary team of academics that highlights changing patterns of disease, population migration, extreme climatic events, water and food insecurity, vulnerable shelter and human settlements, as key issues.
The 94-page report is published in the 16 May issue of The Lancet and is a collaboration between the journal and the University College London. The multi-disciplinary research team includes academics from health, anthropology, geography, engineering, economics, law and philosophy.
Lead author Professor Anthony Costello, of the UCL Institute for Global Health, told the press that we risk the scorn of our children and grandchildren if we fail to act on climate change. Their moral outrage at our inertia will be like ours is when we look back at the dreadful history of slavery and ask how previous generations could have let it happen.
Costello said there were signs that public opinion was reaching a “tipping point”: implying that it will change very suddenly from apathy to calling for action.
“I think the health lobby has come late to this debate and should have been saying more. Young people realise this is the great issue of our age,” said Costello.
Costello said working on the project brought down the traditional barriers that exist between disciplines in universities and united researchers in a way that he hopes will also happen as global organizations work together to address the threat.
He said that the big message of the report is that:
“Climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation.”
“The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world — and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children,” he added.
The authors took as a starting point the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections that go from an optimistic average rise in global temperature of 2 deg C to a catastrophic 6 deg C rise and considered a number of different ways that this could affect health.
Tropical and endemic diseases such as malaria and dengue fever would spread far more widely, with major impact on patterns of disease and death rates.
In 2003, the heatwave in Europe killed 70,000 more people a year than usual, and shows how vulnerable human beings are to heat, “the silent killer”. Death rates in India and Africa could soar higher than in higher income countries, said the authors, pointing out that there is no evidence that populations in hot countries are more resistant to heatwaves.
Food, water and sanitation will also be under considerable pressure as climate change progresses. There is now evidence that crops are more sensitive to temperature than scientists originally thought, with estimates suggesting a rise of just 1 deg C can drop yields by as much as 17 per cent.
Costello said that falling crop yields in the next 20 or 30 years could trigger a rise in food prices. Pressure will also come from population booms in India, China and other countries. There are already one billion people on calorie-poor diets, so this situation is likely to worsen, he said.
Another area of concern is water shortage. By 2020 it is likely that 250 million people in Africa will be short of water due to failure to adapt. Dirty water causes malnutrition and gastroenteritis. Ironically, melting glaciers, changes in river flow and rainfall patterns do not solve the problem but cause flooding and droughts.
As developing nations increase their urban populations, more and more people are living in slums which are highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events like hurricanes and cyclones which have doubled over the past 20 years (according to insurance companies). Richer countries are less likely to suffer from extreme climatic events (as a rough comparison, hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people in America, whereas the cyclone in Burma killed 150,000).
Another area of vulnerability for populations is where they are located, regardless of how rich they are. 13 of the world’s 20 largest cities are on the coast, and sea levels are predicted to rise from between half to 1.2 metres over the next 100 years. Some estimates are saying the rise could be as much as 5 metres, which would be catastrophic.
Costello said three things now need to happen as a result of this report:
- The health lobby has to enter the debate and highlight how greenhouse-gas emissions and deforestation will threaten our children and grandchildren.
- There must be a focus on health systems so that there is more equality among nations. For instance, although Africa has done little to cause the climate change it will suffer enormously, with loss of life due to climate change predicted to be some 500 times higher than in Europe.
- There is an opportunity to adapt and create win-wins all round. Changing our lifestyles to low-carbon ones not only reduces the impact of climate change it reduces obesity, hearth and lung disease, diabetes and stress.
Costello said that all the major players in the fields of health, politics, science, technology and society in general must come together to work on this problem.
The UCL-Lancet Commission have put forward a framework for action and have started the ball rolling to collect information on the health effects of climate change with a view to holding a major international conference in the next two years.
Costello said they especially want poorer nations to take part in the conference, which will establish some clear accountability, targets and indicators.
“We need a new 21st-century public-health movement to deal with climate change,” said Costello.
An editorial in the same issue of the journal said that UCL’s strengthened commitment to “global health in teaching, research and institution building”, expresses the university’s combined history of “moral engagement” with a new vitality about global purpose.
The editorial complements the work of Costello and his team, which “reached out beyond health to engineers, political scientists, lawyers, geographers, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, and students, among others.”
The editorial said that the report identifies five challenges that have to be overcome to stop climate change threatening human survival:
- There is a massive information gap about how to respond to the negative health effects of climate change.
- Climate change will hurt poor people much harder: there is a big task ahead to correct inadequacies and inequalities and protect those who are most at risk.
- While technologies help, they have to be implemented in a way that takes into account cultural differences: this will require investment.
- Creating the conditions for low-carbon living will be the political challenge, and
- Institutions will have to change in order to make climate change a priority.
“Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change.”
Costello A, et al (UCL Lancet Commission).
The Lancet 2009; 373: 693-733.
Additional sources: UCL News.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD